saintant

I read that Everton steered clear because he'd had some injury issues but don't know the details.

The only way this rings true is if Will Still has decided Downs is nowhere near ready for the first team and feels he needs a loan spell somewhere to help him get up to speed. If so Will may have requested a striker on loan who can go straight into the side. All purely theoretical but I can't come up with another explanation if this rumour has any substance.

Ah, wasn't aware Will Still had stated THB must stay but, if correct, we'll probably keep him I guess.

That's only 66 goals and considering how poor we are defensively would mean a low points tally.

Why do you say it is too late for THB to leave?

And a big strong centre forward.

Baz Mads THB Quarshie Jelert Charles Jander Fellows Azaz Scienza Archer

Rogers says no 🙂

Who says?

Agree, he's have been perfect for us.

Their fans were raving about Fernandes - not so much JWP 🙂

Now 3-0 to West Ham. Brighton with a late goal to lead Citeh 2-1.

Fernandes off now after playing about 80 minutes - West Ham fans raving about him and they now lead Forest 2-0.

Well something has worked so far because Forest have had just the one shot and that was off target.

Yeah, he clearly realised he had to change his style and also drop Aarons and Rothwell to compete against Celtic. Rangers were better for it by being less easy to create chances against but had little threat themselves with zero shots on target. It will be interesting to see if he now reverts back to Russball which is often the case because he'll still expect his way to roll over most teams in the SPL other than Celtic so this might be a one off.

Mainly because our go to centre half is Jack Stephens - if he's considered the best it highlights how bad the rest are.

No goalkeeper can leave a free kick to the wall. It's his job to set the wall up correctly and then position himself to give him the optimum chance to save the kick whether it goes his side or the side he's set his wall to help defend. Free kick defensive set up is all down to the goalkeeper, it's his job.

First time I've seen the goals. Bazunu may or may not have been able to stop one or either but he seems to have a real problem with positioning. For the first he is too close to his near post and gives the striker a lot to shoot at. For the second he leaves a huge gap on one side of his goal and, unsurprisingly, the player goes for it - it was a great strike but Baz really invited him to put it where he did. One of a professional goalkeeper's basic requirements is excellent positional sense and I think Baz lacks this key attribute.

Agree, I think AA has run his course with us now and it would be better for him and the club if he was given a fresh start - maybe a loan although maybe a bit too late in the window.

This is certainly an issue. We concede far too many free kicks in every game. A lot of our challenges seem to be badly timed and ungainly making it easy for the ref to give free kicks against us. I get that we want to win the ball back or break up attacks but we have to be less wreckless when making tackles.

Don't think it's been confirmed unless I missed it.

Can anyone explain to me the benefits of playing 3 at the back. Maybe being a bit naive I had assumed it makes a team more solid in defence but I'm not seeing that with us. What I do see is that it makes us struggle to compete in midfield. So if someone can explain the merits I'd be grateful.

Lots of centre backs but are any of them good defenders? Captain Jack is hopeless but always seems to get a pick and his continual errors are overlooked unless they are real howlers.

Not going to panic because we are always slow starters. We'll look a lot different with the new signings once they are embedded into a new formation. It's a long season and we just need to make sure we're in the shake up at the end. Never going to be a fan of 3 at the back and I'm not convinced by Will Sill's claim that it was forced upon him by us not having any wingers. Watford started with 5 at the back and we were comfortable - they had zero shots on target until they converted to a back 4 and then took control of the game. We need to react to such tactical changes by the opposition especially from a winning position.

And people say Romeu is too old 🙂